The creation of target language equivalents in bilingual dictionaries have always been a challenge to both lexicographers and terminologists. Lexicographers, terminologists, subject specialists and linguists face a challenging task of supplying term equivalents for foreign international languages. The lack of a sufficient technical vocabulary in the African languages poses challenges to lexicographers and terminologists when supplying technical equivalents. They often regard transliteration as the quickest lexicographical and terminological procedure without taking the practical demands of users into account. This impedes the optimal retrieval of semantic information by the target users of dictionaries. This article discusses possible reasons why transliteration should not be regarded as the first but the last resort in lexicography and terminology. It proposes different lexicographical and terminological procedures lexicographers and terminologists can use to supply accurate and appropriate translation equivalents without making excessive use of transliteration. In this way a scientific language will develop which could assist users to communicate successfully in the mother tongue.

The article discusses the developments in Shona lexicography during the colonial era and the contribution made by the missionaries in general and Father M. Hannan in particular which later resulted in the on-going process of compiling monolingual dictionaries by the African Languages Research Institute (ALRI) (into which the ALLEX project has been transformed). The missionaries employed various methods that did not only signal the beginning of an economically exploitative relationship between "the West and the rest of us" but also had ancillary cultural consequences (Dathorne 1975: 3). Their motives towards the development of African literature in general and Zimbabwean lexicographic work in particular were primarily evangelical and not to further creative writing. This caused Father Hannan to experience problems not only in his translation of the Shona Bible but also in his Standard Shona Dictionary. Hannan is used as an example because his translation problems were typical of those experienced by all missionaries. Hannan's dictionary was a welcome new development using the orthography introduced in 1931 and revised in 1955. The aim of his dictionary was "to record Shona words in Standard Shona spelling" (Hannan 1959: ix). Hannan's dictionary has made a considerable contribution to standardising Shona orthography.

Kirkeby's English-Swahili Dictionary is a bilingual dictionary of more than 50 000 entries. The most laudable feature of the dictionary is its attempt to be user-friendly especially in the way the entry words have been arranged and the amount of information given. However, a clear objective for the compilation of the ditionary is lacking. The compilers do not seem to know the lexicographical gap they want to fill, the users they are targeting, and their dictionary-using skills. In discussing the strong and weak points of the dictionary, the article will refer to theories of dictionary criticism. Three criteria set by McMillan (1949) will guide this review article: (1) the quantity of the information in the dictionary; (2) the quality of the information presented; and (3) the effectiveness of the presentation of the information. Questions posed in the course of this article will include: Does the dictionary give the information required by the user? Is the information transparently accessible? How is the information presented?

Since the Second World War, the infiltration of English into the Romance languages has remarkably increased, notably diffused by various media such as newspapers, radio and television broadcasts, popular music, and the internet. This comprehensive, thorough and authoritative work, whose data has been collected from these different sources, strives to quantify the spread of Anglicisms within individual foreign languages.

This monograph was issued as Volume 5 in the series Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice, edited by Marie-Claude L'Homme and Ulrich Heid and assisted by Juan C. Sager as Consulting Editor. The Japanese author, Kyo Kageura, does research work at the National Institute of Informatics in Tokyo.

This publication, which results from Kreuder's "Habilitationsschrift" of 2001 at the University of Marburg, investigates the development of terminological reference works in Germany within the field of linguistics, and approaches in the compilation of these works.

This book appeared as Volume 3 in the Series Terminology and Lexicography Research and Practice edited by Helmi Sonneveld and Sue-Ellen Wright. The author, Rita Temmerman, presently working at the Erasmus Hogeschool, Brussels and specialising in problems of terminology in various domains of the life sciences, presents a polemical, stimulating and innovative monograph which continues and deepens her previous research work.

Although this dictionary was not published by a well-established publishing house, its quality and usefulness rival those of seasoned publishers in the field of Khoesan studies, such as the dictionaries by Dickens (1994), Traill (1994) and Haacke (2002). This fourth edition of Visser's Naro Dictionary is a medium-sized dictionary of 240 pages, including 16 pages of appendices.